Lecture  on  Teachers' 
Morals 

and 
Manners 


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^-^•^^x  , 

LECTURE 

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• 

iACHEES'  MORALS  AND  JIANNte, 

DELIVERED  BEFOKE  THE 

AMERICAN    T-sriTUTE             INSTRUCTION; 

At  Keene,  N,  fl..  August,  18G1. 

1 

By   henry  K.  OLIVER, 

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OF    LAWRENCE,    MASS. 

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^y  Published  by  order  of  the  Institute,  for  grat  .itous  uistributiou. 

BOSTON: 

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i 
! 

1 

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TICKNOR,   REED.   &   FIELDS, 

Corner  of  Washington  and  School  Sts. 

1 

M.DCCC.LI. 

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^^^»^    ^^^^^^^Br 

\ 

— e-t  i^  L 


LECTURE  \ 

TEACHERS'  MORALS  AND  MANNERS. 


BY    HENRY   K.    OLIVER, 

OF    LAWRENCE,    MASS. 


We  are  here  assembled,  specially  to  turn  our 
thoughts  to  that  great  subject,  to  the  mfluence  of 
which,  more  than  to  any  other  source,  we  owe  all  of 
happiness,  all  of  national  greatness,  all  of  true  gran- 
deur, all  of  pride  for  the  past,  all  of  hope  for  the 
future,  that  we  now  possess,  or  ever  can  expect.  And 
who  can  find  words  adequate  to  the  true  expression 
of  what  we  ought  to  be?  Who  shall  be  found  bold 
enough  to  unfold  to  our  vision  all  that  the  future  has 
in  store  for  us,  if  rightly  appreciating  the  true  dignity 
of  our  position  and  of  our  destiny,  we  guard  ourselves 
against  the  encroachments  of  ignorance,  vice,  infidel- 
ity and  every  other  baneful  influence,  by  erecting,  on 
the  broadest,  and  deepest,  and  firmest  foundation,  a 
superstructure  of  the  most  diffusive  Christian  educa- 
tion. What  skill  of  artist  could  then  sketch,  or  what 
glowing  canvas  could  contain  the  story  of  this  peo- 
1 


A  MR.    OLIVER  S     LECTURE. 

pie,  from  the  feeble  birth-ship  of  the  nation,  as  with 
fluttering  sail  and  trembling  step, — yet  home  of  brave 
hearts,  and  enduring  heroism, — she  neared  the  rock* 
bound  coast  of  our  great  bay,  to  that  resistless  tide, 
now  sweeping  its  emigrating  thousands  towards  that 
other  mighty  ocean,  which  skirts  our  land  on  Cali- 
fornia and  Oregon's  far  shores.  In  contemplating 
this  deeply  interesting  picture,  I  seem  to  be  carried 
backward  to  the  earliest  days  of  our  liistory,  and 
standing  upon  the  upper  height  of  some  lofty  Pisgah 
of  our  continent,  as  Moses  looked  back  towards  the 
desert,  and  forward  towards  the  promised  land,  so  I 
bend  my  sight  towards  the  horizon  of  the  dim  east, 
and  behold  the  broad  waste  of  boundless  sea,  wliose 
waves  beat  against  and  mingle  with  the  bending 
sky.  As  I  gaze  yet  more,  there  ariseth  out  of  the 
sea,  "  a  little  cloud,  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand.'' 
And  as  I  wonder  what  the  vision  may  be,  it  swells 
upon  my  sight,  and  ''  it  is  as  the  way  of  a  ship  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea,"  and  I  hear  a  voice,  as  of  an  angel, 
wiiich  saith  unto  mc,  "  Behold,  it  is  the  coming  of  a 
nation,  wiiich  (jJod  hath  essayed  to  take  from  the 
midst  of  another  nation,  by  signs  and  by  wonders,  and 
by  a  mighty  hand  and  by  a  stretched-out  arm." 
And  now  turn  thine  eyes  westward,  and  declare 
what  is  the  other  vision.  And  I  look,  as  it  were, 
"  far  down  the  gulf  of  lime,"  and  '•  Behold  !  a  great 
multitude,  which  no  mah  could  number,  from  all 
nations  and  kindred  and  people  and  tongues,  and  to 
them  is  given  the  land  in  possession,  and  they  are 
filling  it  and  replenishing  it,  from  the  rising  of  the  sun 
to  the  going  down  of  the  same."  And  yet  again  the 
angel  saith  unto  mc,   "  Ask  now  of  the  days  that  are 


past,  which  were  before  thee,  since  the  day  that  God 
created  man  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  ask,  from 
the  one  side  of  heaven  unto  the  other,  whether  there 
hath  been  any  such  great  thing  as  this  great  thing  is, 
or  hath  been  heard  hke  it."  No,  my  friends,  no  such 
amazing  contrast  hath  ever  been  known  ;  and  if  it 
were  not  that  "  with  God  all  things  are  possible,"  one 
would  be  almost  ready  to  believe  that  the  like  could 
never  again  be  known.  They  were  the  feeblest  of  the 
feeble,  faint,  few,  yet  fearless ;  a  wilderness  and  deso- 
late snows  of  winter  before  them  ;  a  wild,  an  untried 
coast,  a  frozen  soil,  the  terror  of  the  savage  dwellers 
of  the  land,  a  scanty  supply  of  stores:  homeless, 
houseless  men  and  women  and  tender  children, — yet 
all  was  nought  to  them,  because  there  dwelt  in  every 
bosom  the  unquenchable  fires  of  liberty — liberty,  civil 
and  religious.  Loving  women,  and  daring  men,  what 
could  they  not  fearlessly  encounter?  What  have 
they  not  surely  brought  to  pass?  And  the  deep  secret 
of  the  whole  success  lies  in  the  simple  truth,  that  they 
were  men  of  the  Church  and  of  the  School-house. 
Blest  badges  of  New-England  !  sure  sources  of  all 
her  greatness  !  Let  me  traverse  through  the  wide 
fields  of  the  air,  at  such  towering  height,  that  I  can 
take  into  my  range  of  sight  all  of  cities  and  towns 
and  villages  and  hamlets  that  dot  the  face  of  the  re- 
volving earth,  and  I  will  tell  you  where  the  sons  of 
New-England  congregate,  and  where  they  make  their 
home.  It  will  be  where  I  find  these  marks  of  their 
peculiar  way  of  life,  the  spire  and  the  school.  And 
it  is  to  these  we  are  to  trace  her  greatness,  and  to  the 
continued  existence  of  these  we  are  to  bind  our  hopes 
of  her  future  influences  in  directing  and  controling 


the  destinies  of  the  nation.  Attica  was  the  smallest 
in  territorial  extent  of  all  the  Grecian  States,  yet  the 
influence  of  Athens  was  felt  throughout  all  Greece, 
and  has  not  yet  ceased  to  make  itself  known  and 
commended,  in  all  that  is  beautiful  and  elaborate  in 
eloquence  and  in  art.  The  rival  cities  of  Greece 
dreaded,  yet  acknowledged,  her  power, — a  power 
which  eclipsed  their  splendor  and  endangered  their 
safety.  And  the  origin  and  permanence  of  this  power 
lay  deeply  bedded  in  the  very  nature  of  the  mental 
and  physical  education  of  the  people.  "  Their  powers 
were  excited  by  emulation,  inflamed  by  opposition, 
nourished  by  interest,  strengthened  and  elevated  by  a 
sense  of  personal  honor  and  the  hope  of  immortal 
fame."  Thus  were  all  their  energies  awakened  and 
displayed  in  the  field,  in  the  senate,  in  the  academy, 
and  in  the  studios  of  her  painters  and  sculptors. 

Such  a  people  could  not  but  be  great ;  and  longer 
had  they  endured,  and  more  widely  had  their  in- 
fluence been  felt,  had  the  blest  adornment,  the  hal- 
lowing leaven,  the  preservative  force  of  Christianity, 
been  mingled  with  the  other  elements  of  their  great- 
ness. There  was  indeed  the  school  and  the  academy, 
but  the  spire  was  wanting.  Tell  me  not  that  there 
was  a  religion  established  and  recognized,  and  felt  in 
its  way.  I  grant  it,  because  I  know  it.  Hut  it  was 
debasing  heathenism,  not  elevating  Christianity.  It 
was  a  religion  that  made  tlic  masses  fools  and  abject, 
instead  of  raising  them  to  their  just  position  as  men 
and  as  immortals. 

Now  New-England  is  the  smallest  subdivision  of 
the  United  States,  and  the  several  States  which  com- 
pose it,  can  only  keep  th.eir  just  foothold  of  influence. 


and  make  their  sway  felt  in  the  pulsation  of  the  henrt 
of  this  mighty  people,  by  the  moral  and  intellectual 
power  they  shall  exert.  The  whole  Union  beyond 
our  limits  looks  hither  and  sends  hither,  for  their 
preachers  and  their  teachers.  A  friend  once  told  me, 
that  of  three  hundred  and  sixt^^-six  teachers  whom 
he  met  in  Georgia,  three  hundred  and  sixty  were 
from  the  Eastern  States;  and  hundreds  of  others  are 
going  out  from  amongst  us,  carrying  our  habits,  our 
thoughts,  our  wisdom  and  our  name.  It  is  by  our 
mind  alone  that  we  can  expect  to  maintain  our 
power, — the  power  of  intellect  and  thought, — when 
all  other  influence  may  be  of  the  smallest.  If  faithful 
to  our  privileges  and  to  ourselves,  we  shall  surely 
accomplish  it.  It  was  the  ''  poor  man," — not  the  rich 
nor  the  powerful,  but  the  "poor  wise  man,"  poor  and 
neglected, — that  by  his  wisdom  delivered  the  city, 
when  the  "  great  king  came  and  besieged  it." 

On  this  point,  the  influence  of  Christianity  and  of 
a  Christian  education  upon  the  permanence  of  our  in- 
stitutions, we  are  entirely  too  thoughtless.  Nay,  we 
are  all  but  wholly  forgetful.  Let  the  eyes  of  a  blind 
man,  blind  from  birth,  be  opened,  all  at  once,  to  the 
glory  of  the  stars,  to  the  mild  lustre  of  the  moon  and 
the  gorgeous  blaze  of  the  sun,  and  in  what  an  ecstasy 
of  delight  would  he  shout  for  wonder  and  joy  !  In 
what  unspeakable  happiness  would  he  revel,  as  he 
contemplated  the  variegated  rainbow,  the  glories  of 
the  rising  and  setting  sun,  the  plumage  of  birds,  the 
flowers  of  the  field  and  of  the  garden  ;  and,  in  fine, 
all  the  amazing  display  of  wonderful  sights  that  fill 
and  adorn  God's  beautiful  world  !  But  how  is  it  with 
us,  who,  in  the  plenitude  of  perfect  vision,  have  seen 
1* 


all  these  sights  from  our  youth  upwards?  We  pass 
by  them,  as  almost  worthless, — "  as  the  idle  wind, 
which  we  regard  not."  Why,  within  a  month,  I  have 
seen  men  and  women,  too  indifferent  to  the  sight,  to 
take  the  trouble  of  turning  their  eyes  upward,  to 
look  upon  the  most  glorious  and  gorgeous  rainbow 
that  ever  spanned  the  sky, — that  unspeakably  magni- 
ficent arch  of  promise,  all  ghttering  with  gems  and 
gold, 

Binding  the  "  earth 
With  one  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite." 

The  only  excuse  I  could  fiud  for  them  was,  that  they 
were  going  home  from  a  hard  day's  work,  and  were 
probably  too  tired  and  too  hungry,  to  gaze  at  raree- 
shows,  either  on  earth  or  in  heaven. 

So  it  is  with  us.  We  are  as  hhnd  men  in  the  midst 
of  wondrous  sights.  We  are  morally  blind  to  the 
great  well-spring  of  our  civil  and  social  happiness. 
As  was  beautifully  and  justly  said  by  the  late  onii- 
nent  English  jurist,  Sir  Allan  Parke,  at  a  ])ublic 
meeting  in  London  :  "  We  live  in  the  midst  of  bless- 
ings, till  we  are  utterly  insensible  of  their  greatness 
and  of  the  source  from  which  they  flow.  We  speak 
of  our  civilization,  our  arts,  our  freedom,  our  laws, — 
and  forget  entirely  how  large  a  share  is  due  to  Chris- 
tianity. Blot  Christianity  out  of  man's  history,  and 
what  would  his  laws  have  been,  what  his  civiliza- 
tion 7  Christianity  is  mixed  up  with  our  very  being 
and  our  very  life;  there  is  not  a  fanuliar  object 
around  us  which  does  not  wear  a  ditfcrcnt  aspect,  be- 
cause the  light  oi'  Christian  love  is  upon  it ;  not  a  law 
which  docs  not  owe  its  truth  and  irontkncss  to  Chris- 


MORALS    AND    MANNERS.  / 

tianity;  not  a  ciislom  which  cannot  be  traced  in  all 
its  holy,  beautiful  parts  to  the  Gospel." 

Every  Hne  of  these  expressions  is  tilled  with  truth. 
From  such  obtuseness  of  mental  vision,  should  we 
suddenly  wake,  we  should  feel  all  the  rapture  which 
the  blind  mau  felt,  when  the  miracle  of  Christ  poured 
light  upon  his  sightless  orbs,  and  when,  to  his  fully 
restored  vision,  God's  glorious  earth  and  heaven  were 
revealed. 

I  make  then  this  point,  that  education,  to  be  per- 
manent  and  true  in  its  influence,  must  partake  largely 
of  Christianity  as  an  element;  and  that  our  institu- 
tions, to  be  abiding  and  trust-worthy,  and  to  work 
out  all  the  good  beginnings  and  just  expectations  of 
our  fathers,  must  be  leavened  with  the  Christian  ele- 
ment of  preservation. 

I  presume  I  need  not  argue  the  necessity  of  a  reli- 
gious education  before  an  assembly  of  New-England 
men  and  women,  and  New-England  teachers.  '*  Are 
ye  masters  of  Israel  and  know  not  these  things?"  The 
necessity,  then,  of  such  education  being  granted,  the 
question  comes  at  once  hefore  us,  how  is  it  to  be  ac- 
complished 7  I  find  on  the  shelves  of  my  library  a 
book  entitled  a  "  History  of  the  various  Denomina- 
tions of  the  Christian  Religion:"  and  I  examine  the 
book  to  see  what  this  term  "various"  may  have  for 
its  limitation,  and  behold  "  their  name  is  legion,"  and 
I  should  be  very  unwilling  to  be  understood  as  advo- 
cating the  indoctrination  of  pupils  into  a  knowledge 
of  all  the  peculiarities  of  these  several  varieties.  Such 
no  teacher  could  do,  or  would  have  a  right  to  do,  and 
such  is  not  my  meaning.  A  teacher  is  employed  for 
a  definite  purpose.     To  that  he  must  devote  all  his 


8  MR. 

energies  and  apply  all  his  skill.  He  is  to  instruct 
the  children  under  his  charge  in  what  is  usually  un- 
derstood by  the  phrase  "useful  learning/'  and  such 
"  useful  learning,"  in  its  various  phases,  is  arranged 
to  be  taught  in  onr  several  schools,  according  to  their 
grades  of  Primary,  Grannuar  and  High  Schools. 

But  the  laws  of  Massachusetts,  after  declaring  what 
sorts  of  schools  shall  be  established,  and  what  studies 
shall  be  pursued,  impose,  and  wisely  too,  a  most  sol- 
emn and  important  duty  upon  all  teachers,  specifying 
distinctly  who  they  are.  It  declares  it  to  be  the  duty 
of  "  the  president,  professors  and  tutors  of  the  Uni- 
versity at  Cambridge,  and  of  the  several  colleges,  and 
of  all  preceptors  and  teachers  of  academies,  and  all 
other  instructors  of  youth,  to  exert  their  best  endeav- 
ors to  impress  on  the  minds  of  children  and  youth, 
committed  to  their  care  and  instruction,  the  princi- 
ples of  piety,  justice,  and  a  sacred  regard  to  truth, 
love  to  their  country,  humanity,  and  universal  benev- 
olence, sobriety,  industry  and  frugality,  chastity, 
moderation  and  tcuiperance,  and  those  other  virtues 
which  are  the  oruaiuent  of  human  society  and  the 
basis  upon  which  a  republican  constitution  is  found- 
ed; and  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  such  instructors  to  en- 
deavor to  lead  their  jnipils  into  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  tendency  of  the  above-mentioned  virtues,  to 
preserve  and  perfect  a  republican  constitution  and 
secure  the  blessings  of  liberty,  as  well  as  to  promote 
their  future  happiness ;  and,  also,  to  point  out  to  them 
the  evil  tendency  of  the  opposite  vices." 

What  language  of  commendation  shall  I  find  strong 
enough  to  express  the  high  admiration  due  to  the 
mind  that  engendered,  the  hand  that  penned,  and  the 


TEACHERS     MORALS    AND    MANxNERS.  \f 

people  that  adopted  these  glorious  sentiments.  Long 
live  the  republic  whose  statute-book  they  adorn  !  I 
wish  they  could  be  blazoned  in  starlike  letters  upon 
the  broad  sky,  that  all  the  world  may  read  them  as  a 
daily  lesson.  In  times  of  imminent  peril,  the  Roman 
Senate  gave  full  power  to  their  Consuls  to  see  that  the 
republic  should  receive  no  harm.  Teachers  of  New- 
England,  the  State  requires  you,  by  a  greater,  more 
enduring  and  holier  law,  to  guard  her,  by  the  practi- 
cal and  constant  enforcement  of  these  great  princi- 
ples, against  every  inroad  of  more  powerful,  because 
more  subtle  foes,  than  Gauls,  or  Goths,  or  barbarian 
enemies,  of  any  name  or  strength. 

Does  not  this  single  article  of  the  law  comprise  all 
the  great,  distinctive,  practical  features  of  an  exalted 
Christian  character  ?  Let  me  be  understood,  that  I 
make  no  reference  to  disputed  points  of  doctrinal 
belief  My  neighbor  may  believe  many  matters  to 
be  essential  parts  of  Christianity,  about  which  I  may 
not  be  so  precise.  He  and  I  may  actively  discuss 
many  points,  and  ardently  canvass  their  relative  im- 
portance, and,  after  all,  they  shall  remain  only  points 
of  doubtful  disputation.  But  there  are  principles, 
which  all  classes  of  Christians,  with  one  consent,  be- 
lieve and  acknowledge  to  be  wholly  essential,  about 
which  there  never  has  been  and  never  can  be  any 
dispute,  and  which  therefore  every  Teacher,  in  any 
school,  however  miscellaneous  may  be  the  religious 
creeds  of  the  parents  of  the  attending  children,  may 
and  must  inculcate.  We  all  believe  that  there  is  a 
God;  we  all  believe  that  He  has  made  revelations  to 
men  ;  that  He  has  sent  prophets,  a  Saviour,  and 
apostles  ;  and  that  He  authenticated  their  mission  by 


10  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

giving  them  extraordinary  preternatural  powers. 
We  all  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  We 
all  believe  that  a  life  of  holiness  is  essential  to  a  life 
of  happiness  ;  and  that  this  life  of  happiness  is  con- 
nected, in  some  form  or  other,  with  forgiveness  of  sins 
through  the  Saviour.  We  all  believe  that  the  points 
I  have  quoted  from  the  statutes  of  Massachusetts,  are 
indispensable  elements,  if  we  would  make  up  the 
character  of  a  good  man. — a  man  perfect,  so  far  as 
mere  man  can  be  made  perfect.  On  all  this  broad 
neutrality  of  common  ground,  there  is  scope  and 
verge  enough  for  all  to  stand,  and  for  every  teacher 
to  do  a  great  and  good  work.  Have  you,  Teachers  ! 
been  faithful  in  these  matters  ?  Have  you  complied 
with  conscience  ?  Have  you  obeyed  the  law  I  And 
as  this  word  "  Teachers,"  comes  up  to  my  lips,  I  feel 
my  most  ardent  sympatliies  stirred  within  me  and 
drawn  forth.  Man  and  boy.  teacher  and  pupil,  I  was 
an  iudweller  of  ihe  school-room  for  forty  years  save 
one  ;  and  of  these,  a  quarter  of  a  century  was  passed 
in  imparting  instruction  to  the  young,  ^hiy  I  not 
justly  say,  -'Ye  are  my  bretiiren,  ye  are  my  bones 
and  my  llesh."  Have  1  not  a  right  to  contend,  that 
higher  rej^pect  and  greater  honor  should  be  awarded 
to  those,  whose  energies  are  enlisted  to  forward  the 
incommensurably  great  work  of  education  ?  Have  I 
not  a  right  to  complain,  when  1  witness  the  stinted 
and  sparse  iionors  and  emoluments  that  are  too  often 
doled  out  to  those  who  labor  in  this  great  vocation, — 
a  vocation,  to  which  the  happiness  of  the  nation, 
moral  and  physical,  is  inseparably  connected  ?  Have 
I  not  a  right  to  complain,  when  I  find  them  made 
objects  of  ridicule  in  the  pages  of  some  of  the   most 


MORALS    AND    MANNERS.  11 

popular  and  celebrated  literature  of  modern  times'? 
Need  I  mention  Dr.  Pangloss,  and  Ichabod  Crane, 
and  Dominie  Sampson,  and  Mr.  Squeers  of  Do-the- 
boys'  Hall  ?  Need  I  remind  you  of  the  Sleeping  Mis- 
tress of  the  "School  in  Repose," — fair,  fat,  and  fifty  7 
or  of  the  shrivel-faced  master  of  the  "  School  in  an 
Uproar,"  those  well-known  pictures  by  Henry  Rich- 
ter? 

I  have  now  in  my  recollection  two  samples  of  de- 
cayed school-masters.  They  lived  in  one  of  the 
largest  cities  of  New-England;  and  having  spent  a 
long  hfe  in  the  business  of  instruction,  had  well 
fulfilled  their  several  duties.  Kept  upon  pay  just 
enough  to  feed  the  stomachs  and  clothe  the  backs  of 
themselves  and  their  progeny,  they  gradually  ripened 
in  years,  turned  to  '•  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf,"  and 
'•went  to  seed."  Useless  as  teachers,  from  the  wast- 
ing influence  of  their  professional  tasks  and  from  the 
decrepitude  of  old  age,  the  tender  sympathy  of  those 
about  them  made  one  of  them  "a  parish  clerk,  to  say 
amen"  on  holy-days,  and  the  other  an  almshouse  chap- 
lain,— each  at  one  hundred  dollars  per-annum  and  no 
perquisites.     They  lived 

Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay; 
They  died, — and  from  all  memories  passed  away. 

These  somewhat  extended  prefatory  thoughts  bring 
me  to  the  consideration  of  my  principal  topics. 

I  deem  the  occasion  appropriate  to  my  addressing- 
myself  specially  to  the  Teachers  who  are  connected 
with  this  Institute.  And  I  now  ask  their  candid 
hearing  to  the  thoughts   which  I   may  embody  in 


13 


words, — thoughts  which  constantly  presented  them- 
selves to  my  mind,  when  I  was  m  the  "harness  and 
strife"  of  my  school-master  days,  and  which  have 
never  faded  out  of  my  memory.  These  are  upon  the 
Morals  and  Manners  which  should  rharaclerize  the 
Teacher ;  and  both  these,  if  of  the  right  sort,  are 
legitimate  fruits  and  flowers  from  true  Christian  seed. 

Our  countrymen  have  gradually  fallen  into  negli- 
gent habits  in  their  mode  of  conversation,  and  in  their 
general  bearing  and  carriage.  This  fault  grows,  in 
part  at  least,  out  of  our  notions  of  independence. 
AVe  are  so  sure  that  we  are  the  greatest,  the  most  en- 
lightened nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  that  what- 
ever we  do  or  say,  must  be  right,  simply  because  we 
say,  or  do  it;  and  that  it  is  morally  inipossible  for  us 
to  think,  say,  or  do  any  thing  repugnant  to  sound 
sense  and  honest  truth,  either  in  morals  or  manners. 
"We  are  so  sure  that  we  must  not  and  will  not  bow 
down  to  any  earthly  potentate,  that  very  many  of  us 
are  particularly  careful  not  to  bow  to  any  body,  for 
fear,  apparently,  of  getting  the  neck  into  a  bad  habit 
that  way.  We  are  so  specially  determined  that  we 
will  not  bend  the  knee  to  power,  that  we  forego  to 
kneel  even  at  our  devotions,  and  sit  when  we  pray 
in  the  house  of  God,  and  rise  only  in  complimentary 
respect  to  "  the  sound  of  the  cornet,  the  flute,  the  sack- 
but  and  all  manner  of  instruments,  and  when  we  hear 
the  voice  of  the  singing-men  and  the  singing-women.'' 

This  steady  and  stubborn  independence  is  infused 
into  the  whole  heart  of  our  people.  It  shows  itself  in 
the  young  and  in  the  old,  modified  only,  and  that 
slightly,  by  the  occasional  influence  of  association 
with  men  and  women  of  high  intellectual  culture  and 


teachers'  morals  and  manners.  13 

of  a  studious  and  cautious  regard  to  the  proprieties  of 
refined  society.  Now  I  do  not  object  to  the  general 
feeUng  of  independence  which  pervades  the  great 
mass  of  our  people.  I  hope  it  will  never  die  out.  I 
hope  it  will  continue  to  exert  a  healthful  influence, 
until  we  shall  become  as  independent  of  ignorance, 
and  as  free  from  the  shackles  of  vice  and  immorality, 
as  we  are  free  from  the  thraldom  of  foreign  power. 
I  hope  it  will  continue  to  diffuse  its  wholesome  and 
life-giving  energies,  through  the  great  heart  of  all  the 
people,  until  the  words  of  our  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, '•  that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal," 
shall  be  uncontradicted  by  any  inconsistency,  through 
the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  I  hope  it 
will  not  cease  to  operate,  until  the  sun  that  traverses 
our  heavens,  shall  shine  on  none  but  freemen,  from 
"sea  to  sea,  and  from  the  river  to  the  ends  of  our 
earth."  But  I  cannot  see  any  necessity  for  any  de- 
claration of  independence  from  the  power  of  those 
"  small,  sweet  courtesies  of  life,"  that  betoken  the  per- 
fectness  of  good  breeding.  And  I  am  so  singular  in 
my  notions  in  these  matters,  as  to  believe  that  there 
is  some,  not  very  remote,  connection  between  the  man- 
ner in  which  a  man  carries  his  body,  and  disposes  of 
his  hat,  and  sits  in  a  chair,  (whether  upon  four  or 
two  of  its  legs,)  and  his  moral  qualifications. 

Education,  and  you,  as  its  administrators,  have 
something  more  to  look  after,  than  the  mere  training 
of  the  intellect.  The  healthful  and  graceful  activity 
of  the  bodily,  as  well  as  of  the  mental  powers,  is  to 
be  cared  for,  in  the  great  business  of  education.  A 
sound  mind  and  a  sound  body  are  both  to  be  attempt- 
ed. But  we,  in  our  excess  of  effort  in  cultivating  the 
2 


14  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

intellect,  almost  wholly  neglect  the  body.  If  a  child 
can  be  made  expert  and  discreet  as  a  reader,  accurate 
as  an  arithmetician,  and  skilful  as  a  penman,  we 
seem  to  care  but  little  whether  he  possess  any  graces 
of  carriage  dnd  manners;  whether  he  say  "yes,"' 
or  "  yes-sir,"  —  '•  no,"  or  '•  no-sir,"  or  ''  no-siree  !  " 
whether  he  can  enter  a  room  with  propriety,  whether 
he  can  eat  and  drink  decently,  and  not  as  a  clown  ; 
whether  he  desiccate  his  system  by  a  perpetual 
spitting,  or  save  his  saliva  to  aid  the  digesting  of 
his  food ;  whether  he  can  address  his  equals  with 
kindness,  his  inferiors  with  courtesy,  and  his  superi- 
ors with  respect,  and  bear  himself  gracefully  and 
easily  among  them  all.  "I  wish,"  says  an  English 
writer,  "  to  see  our  people  distinguished  by  good  man- 
ners, not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  these  good  manners, 
as  because  they  indicate  more  than  they  show,  and 
because  they  tend  powerl'ully  to  nourish  and  protect 
the  virtues  which  they  indicate.  What  are  they, 
when  rightly  considered,  but  the  silent,  though  active 
expression  of  Christian  feelings  and  dispositions  ? 
The  gentleness,  the  tenderness,  the  delicacy,  the  for- 
bearance, the  fear  of  giving  pain,  tlie  repression  of  all 
angry  and  resentful  feelings,  tlie  respect  and  consid- 
eration due  to  a  fellow  man,  and  which  every  one 
should  be  ready  to  pay  and  ought  to  receive;  what 
are  all  these,  but  the  very  spirit  of  courtesy  7  AVhat 
are  they,  but  the  very  spirit  of  Christianity  7  And 
what  is  there  in  them  all.  that  is  not  equally  an  orna- 
ment to  the  palace  and  the  cottage,  to  the  peasant  and 
the  nobleman  I  " 

Now  the  practical  virtues  named  in  this  quotation 
are,  I  believe,  indicative  of  the  right  spirit,  the  spirit 


15 


of  Christianity.  I  know  it  may  be  argued,  that  a 
man  may  be  cheerful  in  his  temperament,  graceful 
in  his  bearing,  engaging  in  his  manners  and  address, 
— and  yet  be  destitute  of  a  true  Christian  spirit.  I 
grant  it  is  true,  and  "  pity  't  is, 'tis  true.*'  But  in 
such  case  it  is  but  the  similitude  of  virtue,  and  not 
virtue  herself,  that  appears.  It  is  the  counterfeit 
currency  of  the  world,  having  selfishness  for  its 
great  ingredient  and  alloy,  and  which  is  sure  to  be 
exposed,  if  it  receive  some  smart  rubs  in  its  pass- 
ing through  men's  hands.  It  is  only  skin-deep,  and 
reaches  not  to  the  bones  and  the  marrow.  It  is  but 
surface-gilding,  and  the  baser  metal  which  it  cov- 
ers, is  only  concealed  so  long  as  nothing  impinges, 
with  rude  friction,  upon  the  exterior.  But  the  true 
coin,  the  pure  gold,  the  unadulterated  twenty-four- 
carats  fine  of  the  real  California  metal,  lasts  through 
all  severity  of  handling.  Rough  hands  and  rough 
blows  only  serve  to  polish  it,  and  use  and  abuse  both 
make  it  shine  the  more  brightly.  Nothing  dims  its 
lustre,  and  it  brings,  at  all  times,  its  full  value  in  the 
great  market  of  the  world.  Like  this,  are  the  gentle- 
ness, the  courtesy  of  manner,  the  quiet  dignity  of 
bearing,  that  have  their  foundation  in  a  true  Chris- 
tian heart,  betokening  "  a  wisdom  from  above,  pure, 
peaceable,  gentle,  easy  to  be  entreated,  full  of  mercy 
and  good  fruits,  without  partiality  and  without  hy-» 
pocrisy,"  diffusing  itself  over  the  whole  heart  and 
conduct,  and  modelling  the  whole  man  after  the  truest 
pattern.  So  influenced  and  so  fashioned,  a  man 
Avould  eminently  possess  the  best  and  most  attractive 
manners,  a  gentleman,  because  so  gentle^  and  in  this 
view,  refinement  of  manners  becomes  a  polished  link 


16  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

ill  the  great  chain  of  Christian  virtues,  that  chain 
which  binds  man  to  Heaven  and  to  God.  and  which 
is  yet  the  more  closely  to  be  entwined  around  the 
great  heart  of  humanity,  and  to  be  drawn  more  and 
more  firmly  upward,  till  heaven  and  earth,  joined  in 
inseparable  bands,  shall  eternally  assimilate. 

This  winning  spirit  of  true  courtesy  and  Christian 
refinement  of  manners,  will  diffuse  an  alhiring  odor 
about  the  spot  devoted  to  the  Teachers  toil,  and  can- 
not fail  to  attract  the  impressible  minds  and  hearts  of 
those  who  frequent  it.  A  grateful  perfume  is  exhaled, 
at  early  dawn,  from  the  mouths  of  well-filled  hives, 
wherein  "  sweet  honey-sucking  bees,*' — "  from  out  of 
summer  velvet  buds,"  have  closely  stowed  the  pillage 
of  the  fields.  All  about  the  busy  scene,  where  con- 
gregate the  buzzing  seekers  after  learning's  grateful 
sweets,  let  the  alluring  perfume  of  winning  ways  and 
mild  demeanor  rejoice  their  hearts.  I  make  this  an 
important  point  for  you,  Teachers,  to  consider,  and  I 
say  emphatically,  that  the  school-room  should  never 
be  a  place,  the  associations  of  which  arc  those  of  ter- 
ror, dread  and  unhappiness.  If  there  be  any  matter 
calling  for  unceasing  effort  on  your  part,  it  is  that  the 
place  of  gathering,  should  be  to  your  pupils  a  spot  of 
happy  associations.  In  most  instances  it  is  the  case, 
especially  in  the  country,  that  the  scholar  is  not,  for 
■^  lone-continued  time,  under  the  direct  iiilluence  of 
the  Teacher.  The  greater  then  should  be  his  etl'ort  to 
make  an  early  and  deep  impression.  But  if  by  liis 
ordinary  treatment  of  those  committed  to  his  charge, 
such  Teacher  cause  himself  to  be  looked  upon,  as  a 
sort  of  human  machine,  selected  by  a  committee,  to 
deal  out  a  certain  amount  of  blows,  and  to  elaborate 


teachers'  morals  and  manners.  17 

a  certain  quantity  of  scolding  and  fretful  vitupera- 
tions, from  the  infliction  of  which  the  children  are  to 
insure  themselves,  by  a  certain  per-centage  of  knowl- 
edge acquired,  (and  this  would  emphatically  be  called, 
the  "  pursuit  of  knowledge  under  difficulties,") — if 
such  be  his  habitual  and  daily  practice,  that  his  pu- 
pils come  into  his  presence  with  feelings  of  dread  ;  if, 
on  each  morning,  as  they  enter  the  precincts  of  his 
tyrannic  realm, 

"  The  boding  tremblers  learn  to  trace 

The  day's  disasters  in  his  morning  face," — 

then,  surely,  to  the  pupils  who  gather  beneath  his 
frowns,  the  school-room  is  hut  a  place  of  misery,  and. 
their  fellowship  with  him  but  a  fellowship  of  sorrow. 
An  ancient  tyrant  is  said  to  have  tormented  his 
captured  enemies,  by  fastening  each  live  man  to  a  dead 
body,  and  so  leaving  them,  till  death  had  possession  of 
both.  In  that  horrid  and.  ghastly  partnership,  there 
was  at  least  quietness,  and  that  is  denied  to  the  live 
child,  when  in  contact  with  a  fretful,  fault-finding, 
irascible  master.  Master?  tyrant!  Not  instructor, 
guide,  friend.  I  will  sooner  confide  my  child  to  a 
man  of  patient  spirit  and  just  discrimination,  even 
though  of  less  brilliant  intellect  and  of  inferior  attain- 
ments, than  to  a  man  of  profound  acquirements,  but 
who  is  so  destitute  of  true  wisdom,  tliat  he  neither 
knows,  nor  can  control,  his  own  spirit,  and  in  whose 
bosom  there  is  perpetual  peril  of  wrathful  hurricanes 
and  whirlwinds  of  rage.  ''  Better  is  a  dry  morsel 
and  quietness  therewith,  than  a  house  full  of  sacri- 
fices with  strife  ;"  and  "  better  is  a  dinner  of  herbs, 
where  love  is,  than  a  stalled  ox  and  hatred  there- 
with." 

2* 


18  MR.  -Oliver's  lecture. 

Let  there  be  no  cloud  upon  your  morning  face  ;  for, 
as  was  well  observed  by  Mr.  Mann,  in  one  of  his  ad- 
mirable Reports,  •'  the  storm  which  envelops  a  school 
by  day.  blighting  all  its  joys  and  its  benefits,  is  often 
only  the  spreading  abroad  of  the  cloud  that  lowered 
upon  the  Teacher's  brow  at  morning."  "  For  the  noble 
office  of  improving  others,  the  first  step  is  self-im- 
provement; for  those  who  worship  at  the  altar  of  this 
ministry,  the  first  act  of  worship  is  the  purification  of 
the  worshipper."  From  the  impulsive  and  excitable 
Teacher  of  whom  I  have  just  spoken,  every  parent 
may  justly  beseech  a  good  deliverance;  and  upon  the 
place  where  he  tyrannized,  every  child  will  be  sure, 
in  tifter  life,  to  look  back,  as  Bunyan's  Pilgrim  did 
upon  the  Slough  of  Despond,  with  shuddering  remin- 
iscence of  his  floundering  therein,  and  with  grateful 
emotions  of  joy  for  deliverance  therefrom. 

Let  such  a  state  of  feeling  never  be  kn(nvn  where 
you  shall  preside  and  instruct.  The  scene  of  your 
labors  may  possess  every  appliance  and  advantage, 
which  can  conduce  to  your  comfort  and  success,  and 
all  about  it  may  be  replete  with  cverytTiarm  of 
scenery  that  the  eye  loves  to  contemplate.  Add  to 
its  attractions  the  pleasant  associations  of  a  calm, 
yet  cheerful  demeanor;  of  a  co!ifiding  and  heart- 
winning  intercourse  with  your  pupils,  and  so  bind 
them  to  you  by  the  ten  thousand  little  ties  which, 
with  just  tact  and  right  judgment,  you  may,  from 
time  to  time,  twine  around  their  liearts.  In  the 
well-known  satire  entitled  "Gulliver's  Travels,"  by 
Dean  Swift,  we  are  told  that  he  visited  a  race  of 
Pigmies,  inhabitants  of  the  Empire  of  Lilliput,  and 
that    they,    feeble    and    diminutive    as    they    were, 


19 


contrived  to  bind  him  immovably  to  the  ground,  by 
the  hairs  of  his  head,  and  by  the  sliglit  cords  which 
they  wreathed  about  his  hmbs.  There  are  countless 
Httle  cords  which  you  may  use,  most  advantageously 
and  securely,  to  bind  the  hearts  of  pupils,  so  that  their 
aflections  can  never  be  sundered  from  you.  A  look, 
a  word,  a  smile,  an  encouraging  tone  given  by  you  at 
the  fitting  time,  even  without  apparent  effort,  may 
prove  a  silken  cord,  that  no  time  can  weaken  and  no 
accident  of  after-life  can  disunite. 

The  mind,  impressible  and  soft,  with  ease 
Imbibes  and  copies  what  it  hears  and  sees  ; 
And  through  life's  labyrinth  holds  fast  the  clue 
That  Education  gives  it,  be  it  false  or  true. 

Your  own  character  will  stand  forth  in  a  thousand 
points,  clear,  bold,  well-defined.  Are  you  sudden  in 
temper,  unable  to  control  yourself;  hot,  hasty,  petu- 
lant, peevish, — what  disasters  may  you  not  produce 
upon  the  pliant  minds  of  the  conmiunity  wherein  you 
preside!  Are  yon  slow  to  anger,  mild,  gentle,  forgiv- 
ing,— yet  firm  and  energetic, — what  miracles  of  good 
may  you  not  effect  !  The  tempest  chafes  and  roars 
and  blusters  with  windy  fnry,  and  the  traveller  the 
more  closely  binds  his  cloak  about  him,  and  resists. 
Then  shines  the  sun,  calm,  steady,  noiseless,  yet 
gently  energetic.  The  traveller  unfolds  his  garment, 
lays  it  down,  and  yields. 

What  an  object  of  pity  is  an  enraged  man,  and 
what  an  object  of  pity  and  scorn  is  a  frantic  Teacher, 
to  those  of  his  pupils  who  have  firmness  and  good 
sense  enough  not  to  be  terrified  by  his  temporary  in- 
sanity !     But  a  gentle  firmness  of  manner,  in  seasons 


20  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

requiring  it,  an  even,  cheerful,  frank  bearing,  works 
a  thousand-fold  more  upon  the  heart  and  the  under- 
standing. It  speaks  a  language  more  intelligible, 
more  significant,  more  persuasive.  It  allures,  not 
drives;  it  wins,  not  terrifies;  it  binds  with  a  golden 
chain,  not  fetters  with  an  iron  shackle.  And  when 
to  this  steady  and  cheerful  deportment,  are  added  the 
graceful  proprieties  and  amenities  of  good  manners, 
the  collected  and  cultivated  bearing  of  a  true  gentle- 
man or  lady,  a  charm  is  all  about  the  person,  that 
chains  the  willing  lieart,  and  that  powerfully  and 
pleasantly  pervades  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the 
school. 

But  it  may  be,  that  the  place  where  you  labor  has 
none  of  the  proper  and  requisite  conveniences.  The 
house  may  be  a  lame  apology,  the  location  a  nude 
wilderness  of  a  spot,  upon  which  the  farmer,  who 
once  owned  it,  would  not  put  his  hencoop  nor  his  pig- 
sty, and  so  sold  it  to  the  school-district; — rough,  rude 
and  rocky,  not  a  tree,  nor  a  shrub,  nor  a  spot  of  green 
grass  about  it.  The  very  barberry-bush  avoids  it, 
and  grows  half  a  mile  oil.  So  that  it  would  not  have 
entered  the  imagination  of  man  to  have  built  upon  it 
any  thing  but  a  school-house.  And  years  have  pass- 
ed by,  and  now  the  winds  and  the  rain  and  the  snows 
and  the  boys, — those  wasteful  elements  of  destruction, 
— have  all  fulfilled  their  several  missions,  and  it  is 
become  a  shaky  shanty,  with  here  a  streak"  or  so  of 
red  ochre,  and  there  a  worn  s[)ot  of  aged  gray,  and  on 
the  rattling  shingle-top,  fertile  patches  of  bunchy  moss. 
The  chinniey  moans  in  the  wnid,  with  a  cracked  and 
asthmatic  voice,  and  wheezing  out  the  doleful  song  of 
age  and  bad  mortar,  bids  a  melancholy  farewell  to  the 


teachers'  morals  and  manners.  21 

rotten  roof.  The  door  is  but  half  a  door,  and  will 
soon  sink  below  the  value  of  fifty  per-ceiit.  Tlie 
windows  would  rattle,  if  there  were  glass  enough  in 
them  to  hold  the  wind.  The  old  hats,  that  are  stnck 
through  the  broken  panes, — ah  !  painful  sight  ! — can 
by  no  possibility  be  called  •' crown  glass,"  for  their 
crowns  were  long  ago  knocked  out.  Cold,  cheerless, 
shameless  type  of  the  estimate  placed  upon  the 
"young  and  blooming  creation  of  God,"  which  daily 
congregates  therein.  Sorry  am  I  to  say,  that  such 
things  I  have  seen,  though  they  are  now  of  rarer  oc- 
currence. 

Well,  it  is  hard  for  you,  hard  for  the  children,  infi- 
nitely worse  for  the  reputation  of  the  district.  Make 
the  best  of  it,  so  long  as  you  stay,  (though  you  will 
be  fully  justified  in  not  staying  long,)  and  so  demean 
yourself,  that,  if  it  be  possible,  all  thoughts  of  such 
shameless  neglect  may  be  lost  in  the  happiness  which 
you  can  make  to  reign  even  there. 

There  let  sweet  peace  and  calm  content  be  found, 
There  sunny  joy  and  smiling  hearts  abound  ; 
There  be  soft  words  and  gentle  tones  to  bless  ; 
There  winning  ways  and  looks,  and  kind  address. 

If  it  be  so,  the  children,  who,  in  a  community  that 
sanctions  such  neglect  of  their  comfort,  as  scholars, 
must  be  pretty  sure  to  find  small  happiness  at  home, 
will  rejoice  to  meet  3^ou  even  there.  They  will  sym- 
pathize with  you.  They  will  aid  you.  You  will  find 
little  difliculty  in  governing  them,  and  they  will  study 
and  learn,  because  they  will  see  that  what  profits 
them,  gives  you  happiness.  But,  under  all  circum- 
stances, secure  their  personal  attachment  by  every 


22  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

possible  means.  Let  them  feel  the  force  and  learn 
the  value  of  commendation,  by  bestowing  it  upon 
them,  with  good  judgment  and  right  tact,  when  they 
do  any  thing  well.  What  a  blessed  act  it  is  to  give 
well-merited  praise,  and  how  sparing  some  people 
are  of  it.  It  costs  nothing;  it  calls  for  no  sacrifice  of 
true  dignity,  and  the  false  you  hardh^  need  cultivate. 
It  lessens  you  nowise,  to  notice  and  address  your 
pupils,  whenever  or  wherever  you  may  meet  them. 
A  "  Good  morning,"  or  a  '•  Good  evening,"  is  vastly 
preferable  to  a  stiff,  starched,  stately  stalking,  in  your 
daily  demeanor,  as  though  you  were  vertebrated 
with  a  ramrod,  and  were  lithopliagous,  and  not  hu- 
man. How  would  you  disappoint  the  hopes  of  some 
little  member  of  your*  community,  who,  when  he 
meets  you, — 

For  a  smile  or  nod,  receives  a  scowl, 
And  for  a  cheerful  word,  a  sullen  growl. 

Decontly-brcd  dogs  wag  their  tails  and  show  unques- 
tionable tokens  of  civilization,  whenever  they  meet 
an  acquaintance.  Do  not  permit  yourself  to  be  re- 
puted of  inferior  breeding. 

Self-sacrifice  is  an  important  element,  to  he  largely 
infused  into  the  Teacher's  character.  He  must  rigid- 
ly school  himself  by  the  most  steadfast  and  uncom- 
promising discipline,  and  the  more  he  thinks  of  others, 
and  the  less  he  thinks  of  himself,  the  greater  will  be 
his  desire  to  do  good,  and  his  success  in  accomi)lish- 
ing  that  desire.  One  is  most  mindful  of  those  nearest 
at  hand,  and  one's  self  is  always  so  particularly  close 
at  hand  to  one's  self,  that  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  forget 
one's  self     Out  of  sight,  out  of  mind  ;  and,  vice  vcrsa^ 


teachers'  morals  and  manners.  23 

always  in  sig]it,  always  in  mind.  Self  is  ever  before 
the  mind's  eye,  and  uppermost  in  the  thoughts.  Short 
and  blcary-visioned  as  we  are,  we  counsel  most  upon 
what  may  be  for  the  more  immediate  benefit  of  self. 
The  adventitious  advantages  which  may,  most  palpa- 
bly, show  themselves  to  the  outward  eye,  are  sought 
for,  and  pursued  with  hot  haste.  The  trapping  and 
gearing  and  furnishing  of  the  outward  man,  are 
bright  meteors,  that  seduce  the  short  vision  of  the 
great  mass  of  mankind.  No  spiritual  telescope  seems 
to  aid  them  in  penetrating  into  a  remoter  heaven  of 
intenser  and  more  enduring  stars,  and  no  spiritual 
microscope  reveals  to  their  sight,  the  minute  animal- 
cula  of  congregated  foUies  that  float  infused  within 
the  heart.  The  hopes  are  all  for  self;  the  aspirations 
are  for  self;  the  ambition  is  all  for  self.  Some  men's 
religion,  even,  seems  to  have  been  assumed,  because 
they  are  rather  disposed  to  think  that,  on  the  whole, 
it  will  be  best  in  the  long  run.  Good  men  these  to 
the  outer  seeming;  good,  not  for  goodness'  sake,  and 
because  goodness  assimilates  man  to  God,  but  rather 
because  "  godliness  "  may  be  "  great  gain,"  and  a 
good  investment.  '•  Be  ye  not  like  unto  them." 
Build  no  foundations  upon  a  sand-heap  of  selfishness. 
Forget  yourself,  and  let  your  best  memories  be  of 
others.  Look  towards  the  millions.  Promote  the 
good  of  the  masses.  Imparadise  not  yourself  within 
an  Eden  of  your  own  making,  careless  of  the  throngs 
that  are  struggling  and  starving  without. 

Why,  it  makes  an  honest  heart  burn  with  indig- 
nant amazement,  when  it  sees  it  inscribed,  on  every 
page  of  History,  how  successfully  and  how  shame- 
lessly, the  few  have  made  Gibeonites  of  the  many, — 


24  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water, — bondmen  and 
bondwomen, — helots,  gladiators,  serfs,  slaves, — dig- 
gers and  ditchers, — laboring,  drudging,  sweating, 
starving,  even  fighting  and  slaying  one  another,  and 
making  widows  and  orphans, — all  for  sixpence  a  day  ; 
all  in  no  better  cause,  than  that  some  rarer  diamond, 
of  more  brilliant  hue,  may  be  stolen  from  some  eastern 
realm,  to  glitter  rnid  the  regalia,  to  beautify  the  brow, 
or  flash  and  dazzle  from  the  coronet  of  some  imperial 
queen.  Labor,  I  know,  there  must  be.  The  wide 
world  has,  by  man's  toil,  undergone,  and  must  yet 
undergo  great  changes,  to  adapt  it  to  man's  varied 
purposes  and  wants.  But  1  am  yet  to  learn,  that  ig- 
norance and  debasement  are  essential  to  a  supply  of 
labor.  The  most  productive  labor  is  educated  labor, 
and  educated  labor  cannot  leave  the  laborer  either 
debased  or  poor.  Man  cannot  live  without  labor. 
There  must  be  food  and  houses  and  raiment,  and  the 
endless  ministrations  wliich  comfort  requires.  Were 
all  men  rich  as  Cropsus,  and  wise  as  Solomon,  and 
tender  and  delicate  as  babes,  and  were  there  no  poor, 
no  ignorant, — why  then,  the  rich  and  the  wise  and 
the  delicate  must  buckle  to,  and  work,  and  })roduce 
for  themselves.  But  the  poor  ye  have,  and  always 
will  have  with  you;  and  the  equilibrium  of  society 
is  best  preserved,  and  its  various  classes  are  most 
prosperous  and  most  happy,  when  properly  and  labor 
fraternize,  without  jealousy  and  without  oppression, 
under  the  influence  of  a  wise  and  diffusive  education. 
It  may  be,  doubtless  it  is,  a  severe  task,  to  leave 
yourself,  and  live  more  for  others.  Habit  will  make 
it  easy,  and  the  habit  must  be  formed  while  the  heart 
is  pliant  and   young.     And  you,  Teachers,  you   to 


25 

whom  confiding  parents  surrender  the  youthful  bo- 
dies and  the  pliant  minds  of  iheir  children,  for  the 
great  business  of  educating  them  both,  you  must  be- 
gin the  work,  and  begin  it  aright.  Remember  how 
forcible  is  example,  and  remember  that  it  mightily 
overpowers  all  precept.  Looks,  actions,  attitudes, 
expressions,  modes  of  utterance,  all  are  watched,  all 
imitated.  If  you  enter  your  room  with  your  hat  on 
your  head, — (I  once  saw  three  teachers  do  it,  and 
persevere  in  it,  although  the  then  excellent  Chief  Ma- 
gistrate of  Massachusetts  was  there  present,) — will 
you  reprove  the  thoughless,  unsuspecting  child,  who 
copies  the  fault?  If  you  speak  ungrammatically;  if 
you  pronounce  awkwardly  and  inelegantly;  if  you  use 
words  in  an  improper  sense  ;  if  you  are  unseemly, 
careless,  clownish  in  your  dress,  address,  and  general 
demeanor, — do  you  not  know  that  your  pupils  will 
use  your  example  and  authority  for  being  so  too?  Can 
you,  with  any  expectation  of  success,  attempt  to  teach, 
by  words,  the  importance  of  a  just  and  careful  observ- 
ance of  all  the  rules  of  right  behavior,  when  every 
word  you  utter  is  nullified  by  your  example  1  If  you 
are  redolent  of  the  fumes,  or  savor  of  the  powder  of 
that  unwholesome  and  nauseous  weed,  which  too 
often  befouls  men's  mouths  and  noses  ;  if  you,  by  the 
daily  influence  of  its  pernicious  use,  show  yourself  to 
be  a  morbid  and  unhappy  instance  of  unnatural  sali- 
vation, can  you  complain,  if  some  stout  lad  of  your 
group,  thinking  the  habit  manly,  mistakes  the  school- 
room for  an  overgrown  spittoon,  and  makes  illustra- 
tions of  Black  and  Yellow  Seas,  all  about  the  floor  ? 

Can  you  expect  your  pupils  to  be  studious,  if  they 
see  and  hear  and  know  that  you  are  an  idler  ?    De- 
3 


26  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

pend  upon  it,  they  will  not  fail  to  find  it  out.  But 
with  what  propriety  can  you  be  an  idle  man  7  How 
can  you  have  at  your  disposal  any  time  for  loitering] 
Are  you  so  deeply  versed  in  all  learning,  that  all 
further  study  is  a  work  of  superfluity  ?  Do  you  know 
so  much,  that  you  need  know  no  more  ?  It  is  indeed 
altogether  probable,  that  you  are  sufficiently  well 
acquainted  with  the  particular  books,  selected  for  the 
particular  studies  that  are  pursued  in  the  school  in 
which  you  teach.  But  this  is  far  from  being  suffi- 
cient. If  you  would  be  successful  in  imparting  in- 
struction in  any  assigned  branch  of  knowledge,  you 
must  have  something  beyond  a  familiarity  wnth  the 
particular  text-book  adopted  for  that  branch.  If  this 
were  not  the  case,  your  task  would  be  comparatively 
easy.  You  would  be  under  the  necessity  of  merely 
drilling  yourself  up  to  a  certain  amount,  contained  in 
a  limited  number  of  books,  and  spare  yourself  all 
further  labor  and  study.  Behold  !  your  education  is 
finished. 

Now  this  will  never  answer.  I  maintain,  that 
every  Teacher,  who  would  perform  liis  work  as  it 
ought  to  be  perlbrmed,  must  be  devotedly  studious,  of 
very  considerable  reading,  and  of  no  ordinary  amount 
of  acquisition  in  such  brandies  of  learning  as  have 
relation  to  the  several  subjects  upon  which  his  pupils 
are  engaged.  His  knowledge  must  be  general,  as 
well  as  particular;  and  when  he  shall  have  tasted 
the  pleasure,  and  known  the  distinction  of  intellectual 
acquisition,  he  will  be  irresistibly  ini])ellcd  to  t'urther 
attainment.  While  drinking  at  the  pure  fountains  of 
true  learning,  he  will  imbibe  with  every  draught  the 
spirit  of  self-cultivation,  and  that  cultivation  will  aid 


27 


him  in  cultivating  the  same  spirit  in  others.  A  great 
object  of  education  is  to  originate  an  earnest  desire 
for  knowledge,  not  merely  to  store  the  head  with 
facts.  A  crowded  and  overstocked  memory  nmst 
not  be  mistaken  for  a  fertilized  and  improved  mind. 
Against  this  error  be  cautiously  guarded,  and  be  in- 
defatigable and  doggedly  obstinate  in  your  pursuit  of 
further  truth.  Get  it.  if  by  any  means  you  may,  for 
"  the  discovery  of  Truth  is  the  highest,  the  noblest 
achievement  to  which  a  mortal  can  aspire, — the  ap- 
probation of  his  own  mind,  the  highest  gratification  a 
mortal  can  enjoy."  * 

There  is,  indeed,  a  barrier,  beyond  which  the  hu- 
man intellect  cannot  advance.  There  are  bounds  to 
our  knowledge,  over  which  we  cannot  pass.  They 
stand  in  barricade,  where  the  finite  borders  on  the 
Infinite,  and  where  we  can  only  gaze,  and  wonder, 
and  adore  ! 

Again,  can  you  expect  your  pupils  to  heed  your 
praises  of  truth,  if  they  have,  even  but  once,  found 
you  to  be  untrue?  Do  you  not  know,  that  at  the 
earliest  age,  children  are  acute  enough  to  detect  all 
grimace,  all  counterfeiting?  I  venture  to  say,  that  in 
all  cases  when,  as  a  new  teacher,  you  enter  upon  a  new 
sphere  of  action,  the  children  of  the  school  find  out 
all  your  points,  long  before  you  get  familiar  with  theirs. 
Your  example  is  to  them,  and  at  once,  the  beginning, 
the  continuance,  and  the  end  of  your  teaching.  Do 
you  desire  them  to  be  true,  just,  honest,  studious, 
graceful  in  demeanor,  forbearing,  forgiving,  religious? 
Let  your   unvarying  example   teach  them  that  you 

*  J.  R.  Young's  Lectures  on  Mathematics,  supplied  the  lead- 
ing thoughts  of  this  paragraph. 


28 


are  all  these  yourself.  You  have  no  right  to  be 
otherwise,  under  any  circumstances,  or  in  any  posi- 
tion you  may  occupy.  Specially  have  yon  no  such 
right,  if  you  occupy  the  responsible  post  of  a  Teacher, 
— responsible  to  man,  responsible  to  society,  and  infi- 
nitely more  responsible  to  God.  You  have  no  right, 
I  say,  to  be  untrue,  unjust,  dishonest,  idle,  irreligious. 
I  will  suppose  that  you  are  intrusted  with  the  care 
and  the  education  of  my  child, — of  my  child! — and 
what  associations  does  not  that  word  awaken  in 
every  parent's  bosom  !  At  this  moment  of  speaking, 
my  thoughts  fly  over  yonder  hills,  to  the  homestead 
wherein  my  children  dwell.  I  see  them  all, — yes, 
all  ! — her,  from  whose  dimmed  eyes,  God  hath,  in  His 
own  good  pleasure,  withheld  the  matchless  blessings 
of  perfect  vision,  and  over  whose  sight  will  soon  close 
the  darkest  pall  of 

"  Total  eclipse, — no  sun,  no  moon. 
All  dark,  amid  the  blaze  of  noon  !  "  * 

and  all  the  rest,  for  whom  the  light  of  llenvon  irradi- 
ates rich  scenes  of  joy  and  of  gladness,  in  all  the  glo- 
rious beauty  of  their  colors,  and  in  all  the  exquisite 
harmony  of  their  blending  together.  Clustered  are 
they  about  my  hearth,  and  still  more  closely  twined 
around  my  heart.  "  God  do  so  to  me,  and  more  also," 
if  1  forget  or  neglect  the  unspeakable,  the  awful  re- 
sponsibility, that  ab.ides  upon  me  as  their  parent! 
And  as  thousands  of  parents  have  done  and  nuist  do, 
each  child  has  been  intrusted  to  the  care  and  training 
of  others,  to  be  prepared  for  duty  and  tor  hajipiness; 
yet  not   for   this  world   alone,  whose   period  is  but  a 

*  Milton's  •'  Samson  Ajjonistes." 


29 


drop  in  the  great  ocean  of  time, — whose  duties  are 
transitory  and  evanescent;  not  for  this  world  alone  ! 
but  for  that  other,  yet  to  come,  whose  years  are  be- 
yond the  measure  of  all  computing:  whose  joys,  no 
mines  of  countless  gold,  no  mountain-heaps  of  glitter- 
ing diamonds,  no  holocaust  of  multitudinous  sacrifice 
can  purchase, — yet  all  within  the  good  man's  grasp  ! 
And  as  I  say  to  their  teacher,  so  may  the  yearning 
heart  of  each  parent  say,  m  like  case,  to  you  :  "  You 
have  no  i^ight  to  be  untrue,  unjust,  immoral,  an  idler, 
and  irreligious  !  Remember, — remember !  as  you  train 
my  child,  you  are  influencing  its  destiny  for  more 
than  this  world's  time.  There  is  something  far  be- 
yond, infinitely  grander,  immeasurably  more  endur- 
ing, inconceivably  vaster,  which  shall  begin  its  end- 
less duration,  when  time  shall  be  swallowed  up  in 
Eternity;  when  earth's  wide  surface  shall  be  whiten- 
ed with  the  bones  of  those,  whom  there  shall  be  no 
survivors  to  bury  ;  when 

*  All  worldly  shapes  shall  melt  in  gloom, 

The  sun  himself  shall  die, — 
And  when  this  mortal  shall  assume 

Its  immortality  ; — 
'Tis  when  the  last  of  human  mould 
Shall  all  Creation's  death  behold, 

As  Adam  saw  its  prime  !  '  * 

See  to  it,  that  you  jeopard  not  the  eternal  bliss  of 
my  child !  See  to  it,  that  no  thought,  no  look,  no 
word,  no  act  of  yours,  imperil  the  safety  of  his  undy- 
ing soul  !  If  3^ou  harm  it,  if  you  make  it  a  castaway 
from  happiness  and  from  heaven,  then,  when  you,  and 
I,  and  the  child,  stand  up  for  judgment  at  the  bar  of 

*  Campbell's  "  Last  Man." 


30  MR.  Oliver's   lecture. 

God,  I  will  demand  justice  for  the  wrong;  and  justice 
shall  be  meted  out,  for  God  is  neither  untrue  nor  un- 
just !  See  to  it,  that  you  fail  not  iu  all  these  duties  !  " 
Again.  Do  you  desire,  (and  you  certainly  should 
desire  it,  and  strive  to  accomplish  the  desire,)  do  you 
desire  that  your  pupils  should  be  graceful,  easy,  re- 
spectful,— ready  in  the  practice  of  all  tlie  courtesies 
of  refined  society  ?  Strive  to  illustrate  the  beauty  of 
these  graces  in  your  own  person.  "  The  trophies  of 
Miltiades  will  not  let  me  sleep,"  said  the  young 
Themistocles,  when  he  heard  of  the  successes  at 
Marathon.  In  a  nobler  cause,  a  mightier  struggle 
with  the  giant  powers  of  ignorance  and  vice,  let  the 
laurels  of  your  brethren  awaken  a  generous  emula- 
tion, whose  results  shall  benefit  yourself  and  your 
profession,  and  make  a  deep  and  abiding  mark  upoQ 
the  times  in  which  you  lived.  We  are  too  negligent, 
too  thoughtless,  upon  the  important  topic  I  am  dis- 
cussing;  and  there  is  an  occasional  awkwardness, 
and  sometimes  an  impolishcd  oddity  in  manners:  an 
unseemly,  ungraceful  style  of  address  and  demeanor, 
an  absence  of  what  is  called  perfeclness  of  good- 
breeding,  plainly  visible  even  to  an  eye  of  limited 
practice.  Were  it  not  so,  and  had  it  never  been  so, 
no  Dr.  Pangloss,  no  Dominie  Sampson,  no  Ichabod 
Crane,  would  have  entered  into  the  imagination  of 
fiction-writers.  Well-bred  foreigners  notice  and  allude 
to  this  fact,  as  one  of  our  national  faults.  Allow  me, 
then,  in  the  spirit  of  kindness,  and  in  deep  sympathy 
witli  your  success, — for  with  the  full  strength  of  such 
feelings,  have  1  come  to  hold  a  brief  comnumion  with 
you, — allow  me  to  suggest,  that  these  faults  are  spe- 
cially noticeable  in   the  remoter  and  more  rural  dis- 


MORALS    AND    MANNERS.  31 

tricts  of  our  country.  There  is  a  great  and  sincere 
spirit  of  kindness, — but  the  independence  of  feeling 
which  pervades  our  people,  has,  in  some  unfavorable 
degree,  detracted  from  the  charm  of  that  kindness, 
and  rendered  it  less  impressive,  than  if  courtesy  of 
manner  had  come  as  its  grateful   auxiliary. 

You  may  even  punish  gracefully.  On  a  certain 
great  occasion  of  state,  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  her 
Majesty,  the  Queen  of  England,  was  compelled  to 
practice  an  uncommon  degree  of  patience,  by  the  de- 
lay of  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  one  of  her  Maids 
of  honor.  At  last,  her  Grace  arrived,  filled  with  ap- 
prehension that  her  tardiness  would  be  rebuked.  As 
she  entered  the  presence  of  royalty,  the  Queen  step- 
ped forward,  and  placing  about  the  neck  of  the  trem- 
bling lady,  an  elegant,  diamonded  gold  watch,  simply 
observed,  "  Allow  me,  my  dear  Madam,  to  substitute 
this  exact  time-keeper,  for  the  micertain  instrument, 
which  has  delayed  your  prompt  arrival." 

Now  the  quiet  and  graceful  dignity  with  which 
this  rebuke  was  administered,  took  the  sting  from  its 
severity,  and  yet  thoroughly  cured  the  fault.  Cannot 
you.  Instructresses,  who  may  hear  me,  practice  the 
same,  in  the  little  realm  of  which  each  of  you  is  the 
reigning  Queen  ? 

As  President  Washington,  surrounded  b}^  a  bril- 
liant cortege  of  officers,  was  once  passing  through  a 
street  in  Philadelphia,  he  was  met  by  an  aged  negro, 
who  raised  his  hat  in  token  of  respect.  The  General 
did  the  same;  and  when  one  of  his  attendants  ex- 
pressed surprise,  he  merely  observed,  "  Would  you 
have  a  negro  surpass  me  in  civility?"  Cannot  you, 
Instructors,  practice   an   equal  degree  of  courteous 


32  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

bearing,  in  the  little  republic,  of  which  each  of  you 
is  the  President  ? 

I  say  then,  and  I  desire  to  be  remembered  as  hav- 
ing fully  adopted  the  sentiment,  that  5^ou,  Teachers, 
have  the  greatest  obligations  and  the  weightiest 
responsibilities  pressing  upon  you,  and  these  you 
assumed,  whether  knowingly  or  thoughtlessly,  when 
you  ventured  upon  a  vocation,  which  should  bring 
all  its  energies  to  act  upon  minds  that  are  to  be  illu- 
mined with  the  light  of  knowledge,  upon  hearts 
that  are  to  be  hallowed  by  the  sanctity  of  religion, 
upon  souls  that  are  to  dwell  in  the  immediate  efful- 
gence of  God  present  in  Heaven. 

"  A  cloud  of  witnesses  around, 
Holds  you  in  full  survey  ; 
Foroet  the  steps  already  trod, 
And  onward  urge  your  way."  * 

Go  on  to  perfection,  by  perfecting  yourselves  in  the 
general  example  you  may  exhibit,  in  the  words  and 
language  you  may  use,  the  manners  and  deportment 
that  may  distinguish  you,  the  training  to  which  you 
may  subject  your  temper  and  your  heart,  the  study 
and  preparation  for  your  great  daily  work,  and  in  the 
religious  character  which  your  great  vocation  demands 
of  you.  For  your  position,  in  relation  to  all  these 
matters,  you  arc  hold  in  fearful  responsibility. 

Do  you  ask,  "  Who  can  be  suliicient  for  these 
tilings?"  I  reply,  "Be  not  discouraged.  Be  but 
faithful  and  just  to  your  purpose.  Be  the  trnf/i  m 
every  relation  ; — speak  it, — act  it, — live  it, — because 
the  truth  IS  truth,  and  is  of  (iod !  '' 

•  Watts. 


33 


At  the  shrine  of  ail  ancient  Eastern  divinity,  a  rich 
man  brought  his  gold,  a  mighty  man  his  fame  and 
his  power,  a  learned  man  his  wisdom,  and  a  certain 
poor  man  an  honest  heart  and  a  penitent  sigh.  Each 
left  liis  gift  upon  the  altar,  and  went  his  way; — and  lo  ! 
when  the  orient  morn,  "from  out  the  starry  sphere," 
upon  the  temple  broke,  the  gold  lay  all  untouched  ; 
the  power  was  unheeded  ;  the  wisdom  was  despised  ; 
but,  behold  !  the  true  heart  and  the  penitent  sigh  rose 
on  a  sunbeam,  and  mingled  in  with  Heaven  ! 

Mr.  President,  and 

Gentle3ien  and  Ladies  of  the  Institute, 
I  feel,  at  this  point,  that  I  shall  hardly  be  thought 
to  be  consistent  with  my  own  defence  of  a  courteous 
bearing  and  a  tender  regard  for  the  feelings  of  others, 
if  I  do  not  apologize  to  you,  for  detaining  you  so  long. 
It  is  the  cause  that  must  plead  for  me ;  and  my  ex- 
cuse shall  be  phrased,  with  some  small  change  of  a 
well-known  couplet, — 

Brief  I  had  been, — yet  if  prolonged  "  in  aught, 
"  The  love  I  bear  to  Learning  is  in  fault."  * 

It  is  the  cause  in  which  I  speak  that  moves  my  inner 
heart.  All  my  best  sympathies  are  with  it;  and 
shame  to  me  were  it  otherwise.  Long  years  of  pa- 
tient toil,  I  spent  within  the  four  walls  of  the  school- 
room, and  many  hours  and  scenes  of  happiness  do  I 
recall.  And  now  that  I  have  left  them  forever, — now 
that  they  are  as'the  misty  shadows  of  days  that  fled 
away  with  each  setting  sun,  my  heart  exclaims:  "If 
I  forget  thee.   O  Jerusalem,   let  my  right  hand  forget 

*  Goldsmith's  "  Deserted  Village." 


34  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

her  cunning.  If  T  do  not  remember  thee,  let  my 
tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth, — if  I  prefer 
not  Jerusalem  above  my  chief  joy." 

Yet  why  should  I  longer  plead  the  cause  of  a 
widely-diffused  education,  of  sound  learning,  and 
high  mental  culture,  of  deep  religious  feeling,  of  pure 
morality  and  of  refinement  of  manners,  before  so 
intelligent  a  jury  ?  The  verdict  swells  upon  your 
lips,  and  bursts  upon  mine  ear.  You  are  not  con- 
tent that  the  world  shall  stand  still,  and  that  the 
men  and  the  women  and  the  children  thereof,  shall 
be,  and  continue  to  be,  as  darkened  and  benighted,  as 
they  were  before  the  flood.  If  the  stand-still  theory 
were  the  right  one,  why  then  ''you  and  I  and  all  of 
us,"  like  the  savage  tenants  whom  our  fathers  found 
upon  these  shores,  might  still  be  taking  our  food,  and 
putting  it  into  our  mouths  with  our  fingers,  from  otf 
a  big  shell  or  a  piece  of  bark,  and  the  knife  and  fork, 
and  the  chop-stick  and  the  plate,  be  matters  unin- 
ventcd.  If  things  were  well  enough  as  they  were,  the 
camel  and  the  dromedary,  the  horse,  and  the  ox,  and 
the  ass,  would  be  quite  suflicient  for  purposes  of  tra- 
vel, and  that  great  and  terrible  iron-courser,  with  liis 
thundering  tread,  his  hissing-hot  breath,  his  shrieking 
whistle,  his  fiery  trail,  and  his  hurricane  speed,  as  he 
dashes  though  your  hills,  would  be  as  much  unknown, 
as  if  iron  had  never  been  disembowelled  from  the 
earth,  and  water  had  never  been  boiled. 

If  things  were  well  enough  as  they  were,  then  the 
simple  and  frail  canoe  of 

" the  poor  Indian,  whose  untutored  mind 

Sees  God  in  clouds,  and  hears  him  in  the  wind," — 

were  sufficient  lor  the  naviization  of  the  seas  :    and 


teachers'  morals  and  manners.  35 

those  giant  monsters  of  the  deep,  those  huge  levia- 
thans of  modem  commerce,  which,  freighted  with  the 
miiUiform  productions  of  men's  wits  and  men's  hands, 
and  with  men  themselves,  drive  with  resistless  energy, 
against  wind  and  wave,  bringing  into  proximity  people 
and  nations,  whom  ocean  vainly  divides,— these  match- 
less trophies  of  human  skill  and  human  daring,  would 
be  yet  to  burst  upon  the  sight  of  an  astonished  world  ! 

If  things  were  well  enough  as  they  were,  men 
would  be  still  writing  with  the  end  of  a  reed,  upon  a 
perishing  piece  of  bark,  or  on  a  liquescent  table  of 
wax, — and  parchment  and  paper,  and  the  gray-goose 
quill,  and  the  steel  and  golden  pen,  be  still  beyond 
our  grasp;  while  the  leaden  type,  and  the  wiry 
telegraph,  and  the  iron  and  steam  printing-press, 
and,  in  fine,  all  the  powerful  appliances  and  engines 
of  modern  civilization,  be  as  unknown  to  us,  as  was 
the  steam-ship  itself  to  the  mariners  of  Noah's  ark, — 
all  matters  for  posterity,  or  nobody,  to  think  about ! 

If  things  were  well  enough  as  they  were,  then  war, 
and  human  slavery,  and  intemperance,  those  dread 

"  Spirits  of  the  nethermost  abyss, 

Besmeared  with  blood 
Of  human  sacrifice,  and  parents'  tears," — 

horrible  monsters,  which  curse  and  have  cursed  the 
fair  face  of  earth  almost  since 

"  Man's  first  disobedience 
Brought  death  into  the  world,  and  all  our  woe," — 

these  may  continue  their  accursed  work,  and  never 
return  to  that  deep,  dark  and  demoniac  nativity,  of 
which  alone  they  are  congenial  spirits  ! 

No,  my  friends  !  I  am  persuaded,  that  with  a  doc- 


36  MR.  Oliver's  lecture. 

trine  so  admirably  adapted  to  chill  the  glowing  spirit 
of  the  world's  progress,  to  check  all  effort  at  improv- 
ing the  moral  and  intellectual  character  of  the  age, 
yon,  as  men  who  love  their  fellow  men,  can  have  no 
sympathy.  Your  efforts,  I  am  persuaded,  will  be  in 
the  opposite  direction,  and  will  be  put  forth  to  sustain 
a  nobler  cause.  It  is  to  promote  that  cause,  that  you 
have  congregated  here,  joining  heart  with  heart,  and 
hand  in  hand.  You  have  a  great  vocation  before 
you,  the  high  office  of  strengthening  and  improving 
'•  the  instrument  upon  wliicli,  and  with  which.  Edu- 
cation herself  labors  to  fulfil  her  mission. — to  expand 
the  powers,  to  enlarge  the  grasp,  to  sharpen  the  per- 
ceptions of  the  intellect."  *  It  is  yours  to  excite  in 
the  mind  a  love  of  learning.  It  is  yours  to  develop 
and  invigorate  the  powers  by  which  all  learning  shall 
be  attained,  and  your  first  successful  step,  either  in 
the  training  of  yourself,  or  of  others,  is  the  sure  and 
unmistakable  prognostic  of  all  future  success.  Let 
the  mind  be  but  once  awakened  to  the  beauties  of 
science  ;  let  it  but  once  imbibe  a  draught  of  that  deli- 
cious stream,  which,  with  perennial  waters,  wells 
forth  from  wisdom's  sacred  fountain,  and  it  can  never 
sutler  its  appetite  to  be  satiated.  The  acquisition  of 
knowledge  begets  the  desire  for  more.  Like  Jealousy, 
'•it  makes  what  it  doth  feed  on.*'  And  to  awaken 
this  desire,  to  incite  this  appetite,  to  quicken  and  in- 
vigorate all  the  powers  of  the  intellect  in  the  pursuit 
of  food  with  which  to  supply  this  appetite,  constitutes 
the  great  business  of  Education. 

The  time  has  indeed  been,  when  philosophy  and 

*  J.  R.  Youiiff. 


37 


all  learning  was  a  sealed,  and  unknown,  nay,  almost 
an  unseen  book,  to  the  great  n)ass  of  mankind.  A 
few  individuals,  whose  inclinations,  whose  seclusion 
from  the  world,  whose  freedom  from  harassing  cares 
and  life-supporting  toil;  whose  means  and  whose 
minds  were  all  propitious  to  the  favored  possessor, 
and,  fortunately  for  him,  propitiously  disposed  for  the 
work,  attempted  to  achieve  the  undertaking,  and  to 
surmount  the  obstacles,  which  the  ancient  method  of 
study  and  of  education  delighted  to  throw  in  the  way 
of  the  scholar.  The  disciples  of  Plato  listened  to  the 
instructions  of  their  master  five  long  years,  before 
they  were  considered  wise  enough  even  to  ask  a  ques- 
tion ;  and  the  novices  of  Druidism,  the  ancient  reli- 
gion of  our  primitive  British  progenitors,  spent  the 
longer  period  of  twenty  years  in  mastering  the  ob- 
scure and  mysterious  versification,  under  which  all 
the  profound  learning  of  the  Druidical  priests  was 
enveloped.  But  a  brighter  day  has  dawned.  The 
temple  of  learning  is  no  longer  obscured  by  impervi- 
ous clouds,  and  denied  to  the  vision  of  those  who 
would  seek  to  enter  and  worship  at  the  altar  of  the 
Divinity  enshrined  within.  She  herself  is  the  uncom- 
promising foe  of  all  mystery  and  concealment,  abhor- 
ring all  pedantry  and  conceitedness  of  learning,  and 
all  the  vain  folly  of  intellectual  pride.  She  holds  out 
persuasive  and  substantial  allurements  to  all  men,  of 
every  grade  and  name,  to  enter  her  hallowed  pre- 
cincts. Unlike  the  fabled  divinities  of  Grecian  and 
Roman  and  Northern  Mythology,  she  takes  no  votive 
offerings  from  her  worshippers,  but  loads  them  all 
with  precious  gifts,  in  just  proportion  to  the  sincerity 
of  their  devotion.  None  are  rejected,  none  unreward- 
4 


38 


MR. 


ed.  "  Riches  and  honor  are  with  her, — her  fruit  is 
better  than  gold,  her  revenue  than  choice  silver." 
Philosophy  has  been  called  down  from  heaven,  and, 
obeying  the  summons,  is  now  within  the  reach  of 
ordinary  minds;  and  lamentable  and  desperate  be- 
yond all  hope  of  awakening,  must  be  the  lethargy  of 
that  intellect,  which  is  not  excited  to  efibrt,  and,  in 
some  degree,  at  least,  improved  by  the  countless  facil- 
ities and  the  generous  offers  of  aid,  wiiich  surround 
it.  In  the  words  of  another:  "Science  is  no  longer 
cloistered  in  monasteries.  It  is  no  longer  imprisoned 
in  walled  colleges.  It  is  no  longer  buried  in  unknown 
tongues.  It  is  no  longer  reverenced  as  supernatural 
inspiration.  It  is  no  longer  the  privilege  of  the  few, 
and  no  longer,  as,  while  abused,  it  too  often  proved, 
the  scourge  of  the  many."  No,  my  friends,  a  liood 
of  intellectual  light  is  flashing  round  us,  and  who 
shall  forbid  that  you,  and  I,  and  all,  shall  not  be 
baptized  in  its  beams,  and  bask  in  its  shine,  and  be 
warmed  and  invigorated  by  its  heat.  The  gates  of 
the  once  impregnable  Gaza  of  learning  have  been  un- 
hinged, and  carried  off,  by  the  intellectual  Samsons 
of  modern  times  ;  the  veil  of  the  inner  temple  of  wis- 
dom is  rent  in  twain,  and  the  broad  pathway  into  the 
innermost  recesses  is  spread  wide  open  to  all  v/ho 
would  enter.  Wisdom  herself  "  now  cricth  from 
within  and  from  without.  She  uttereth  her  voice  in 
the  streets  ;  she  crieth  in  the  cliief  place  of  concourse, 
in  the  opening  of  the  gates  :  '  Behold,  I  will  pour  out 
my  spirit  unto  you,  I  will  make  my  words  known 
unto  you.'  " 

Knowledge  may  be  had,  (thanks  to  the  liberality 
of  many  of  our  States,  it  is  specially  so  for  their  sons 


TEACHERS     MORALS   AND    MANNERS.  d9 

and  daughters,) — it  may  be  bad  "  without  money 
and  without  price."  In  the  dehghtful  path,  which 
spreads  its  grateful  fruits  and  flowers  before  our  sight, 
the  good,  the  great,  the  mighty,  the  truly  noble,  both 
in  character  and  in  rank,  princes  and  subjects  of  every 
degree,  the  votaries  of  science  of  every  name,  age 
and  sex,  have  thronged  in  dense  array.  With  con- 
centrated and  successful  effort,  they  have  assisted  in 
the  good  work  of  clearing  away  whatever  hindrances, 
ages  of  scholastic  selfishness  had  heaped  up,  as  bar- 
ricades against  their  progress,  and  in  smoothing  and 
adorning  the  way,  for  the  good  of  those  who  are  to 
follow  after  them.  Genius  brings  forward  her  theo- 
ries and  her  speculations,  and  invention  supplies  to 
experiment  the  means  of  bringing  them  to  the  test. 
Never  could  it  more  truly  be  said,  that  "  Wisdom  is 
justified  of  her  children."  Since  the  spirit  of  investi- 
gation was  awakened  by  Bacon,  that  giant-minded 
pioneer  in  inductive  science,  a  host  of  ingenious  and 
gifted  men  have  arisen,  who  have  made,  and  an- 
nounced to  the  world  the  most  wonderful  discoveries. 
The  race  is  not  yet  extinct.  Why  should  I  detain 
you,  to  recount  their  names  and  their  deeds?  They 
urged  forward  the  car  of  human  progress;  they  widen- 
ed the  phylacteries  of  human  knowledge;  they  enno- 
bled science  and  art,  and  the  very  good  they  wrought 
for  others,  immortalized  themselves.  The  gloomy, 
sullen  shade  of  ignorance  and  vice  fled  before  the  sun, 
which,  with  "healing  in  its  beams,"  darted  its  light 
athwart  their  eastern  skies. 

"  So,  when  the  sun,  from  his  watery  bed, 

All  curtained  with  a  cloudy  red, 
Pillows  his  chin  upon  an  orient  wave, 


40  MR.    OLIVER'S    LECTURE. 

The  flocking  shadows,  ghastly  pale, 
All  troop  to  their  infernal  jail ; 
Each  fettered  ghost  slips  to  his  several  grave."  * 

Yetj  much  as  they  acconiphshed,  they  garnered  not 
in,  all  the  fruits  of  the  teeming  fields  of  knowledge. 
Other  and  greater  discoveries  are  yet  to  come ;  and 
who  shall  say,  that  some  of  those  whom  you  are 
skilled  to  train  and  prepare  for  the  work,  shall  not 
reap  and  bind  the  ample  sheaves,  and  bear  them  re- 
joicing home?  The  deep  debt  of  gratitude  imposed 
upon  jjs  by  the  wise  labors  and  thoughtful  forecast  of 
our  ancestors,  we  must  not  fail  to  meet,  and  to  pay, 
with  full  interest  added.  Nor  must  we  fail  to  toil  as 
sedulously  for  the  good  of  posterity,  as  our  progeni- 
tors toiled  for  our  good,  and  we  cancel  the  debt  that 
we  owe,  just  so  far  as  we  are  earnest  and  successful 
in  this  duty.  The  good  or  the  evil  of  untold  genera- 
tions will  be  influenced  by  what  we  do,  and  fearful 
is  the  responsibility.  That  all  but  limitless  realm, 
that  lies  far  towards  the  western  sun,  is  to  be  ten- 
anted by  the  countless  throngs  of  unborn  Americans. 
Upon  these  is  our  iulluence  to  operate,  upon  their 
minds  is  our  teaching  to  bear;  and  whether  rich  gar- 
ners of  virtuous  fruits  shall  send  a  blessed  odor  to 
their  skies,  or  the  noxious  weeds  of  vice  shall  taint 
their  moral  atmosphere  with  pestilence  and  death, 
can  alone  be  determined  by  success  or  failure,  in 
planting  and  rearing,  on  every  acre  of  that  wide  do- 
main, the  manners,  the  morals  and  the  institutions 
that  bless  and  adorn  Psew-England. 

*  Milton's  '*  Christmas  Hymn,"  as  varied  in  Handel's  "  Sam- 
son." 


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